Communications, whether wireline or wireless, often involve the transfer of sensitive information. In order to avoid exposing or otherwise allowing third-party access to such information, sensitive communications are typically encrypted using various known cryptographic algorithms, such as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), Data Encryption Standard (DES), etc. However, use of such cryptographic algorithms involve both encrypting and decrypting communications, which tends to contribute a relatively large amount of processing overhead to the overall communication process. This can be particularly burdensome in the context of high-definition video content which alone requires a relatively high amount of processing power to perform both the encoding and decoding functions.
In addition, particularly in the wireless context, the quality of the communication channel can quickly degrade. Such signal distortion must be compensated for on the receiver-side before the signal can be properly demodulated. Thus, in order to properly receive an encrypted video signal, both a signal distortion correction operation and a decryption operation must be performed before the signal itself can even be demodulated in accordance with whatever video modulation scheme is being used (e.g., Binary Phase-shift Keying (BPSK), Quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK), Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM), etc.). The end result is that relatively complex and expensive hardware is required on the receiver-side in order to accurately process the incoming encrypted video stream. Thus, there is a need for a system and method for securing a communication link that do not rely on traditional encryption schemes.